


Fork in the Road

by marguerite_26



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, post-s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-03
Updated: 2012-12-03
Packaged: 2017-11-20 05:27:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/581773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marguerite_26/pseuds/marguerite_26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of his beating by Gerard Argent, Stiles must come to terms with the choices he's made in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fork in the Road

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to melusinaHP and Faithwood for the their advice.

There’s a name for this. He googled it. _Acute Stress Reaction_ : a psychological condition arising in response to a terrifying or traumatic event.

It’s natural.

It feels anything but.

While it was happening -- the showdown in the warehouse last week, and basically everything this entire school year -- while it was happening Stiles wanted nothing more than for it to be over. 

To reach the surface and breathe. 

Only his lungs have all the oxygen they want now, and Stiles has his old life back. Somehow in all the _needing to survive_ moments, he forgot that it sucked to be him.

He walks into school, stomach cramping already because he’d slept late (stupid nightmares) and had forgotten to eat. Scott’s standing at his locker and Stiles cracks a smile. 

It disappears as Scott never looks his direction, but turns and walks away with Isaac, oblivious. Stiles knows he could just call out to him. They aren’t fighting. They’re thicker than ever, one might think, now that Allison is keeping her distance. 

Only there’s something about the way Isaac looks at Scott -- like Scott’s just hung the moon -- that makes Stiles pause. 

Scott’s laughing, and Stiles can hear, ‘Remember last night when...’

And there’s a flare of irrational jealousy to go with his hunger pangs. This isn’t just a werewolf thing or an Isaac has his first friend thing -- though it is both of those as well -- but it’s also that Scott’s mom offered Isaac a place to stay until he’s eighteen. Children’s Services are now off his back; he’s officially enrolled back in school and living under Scott’s roof like a brother. 

He’s read the police report on Mr. Lahey’s death and knows what they’d found in the basement, so he’d be a complete asshole to resent Isaac a little upturn in living conditions. And Stiles would never leave his Dad for anything, so there’s no point thinking _that could be me if I’d gone and got myself bit._ But Stiles did say it was irrational. So he lets his best friend walk away with Isaac, rather than jog the few steps to catch up with them, and swallows past the thickness in his throat. 

It’s different though when he looks over at Jackson and Lydia. That feeling there? Entirely rational. One hundred percent justifiable teen angst right there. From across the cafeteria he watches the oddest couple in history eat lunch together. He scowls at Jackson tucking a stray hair behind Lydia's ear and leaning close to whisper something. He can’t look away as her face lights up and her eyes go soft when Jackson presses his lips to her cheek.

Stiles was convinced, back before this all began, that they’d only been together for aesthetic purposes. Like Jackson matched Lydia’s new purse and Lydia on his arm went so nicely with the ‘C’ on Jackson’s lacrosse jersey. He’d been absolutely positive that if you scratched the surface of that relationship, it would pop like an over-inflated balloon. Only that’s not what happened. And this new wolfy Jackson is smitten and Lydia is fawning. And Stiles’ stomach rolls every time he sees them.

\--

He sits with his dad, eats some bland low-fat frozen lasagne and makes small talk until the narrowing array of safe topics is exhausted and he falls silent. He rushes through his meal, avoiding his father’s concerned looks.

That night he dreams of fangs and claws. Of standing by the open trunk of Peter Hale's car with the stench of his dead nurse filling the air. 

His heart pounds as Peter tugs his wrist and opens his mouth, ready to bite.

Stiles dreams of saying yes. 

In his dreams Gerard’s fists don’t hurt and when Stiles fights back Gerard’s surprise is frozen on his face as he falls dead, neck snapped. 

In the morning he shakes off the images and remembers his life. He tells himself the shivers are relief, but disappointment gnaws at his belly. 

\--

The bruises on his cheeks fade; his broken ribs heal.

The dreams don’t stop and neither does that gnawing.

\--

Stiles thinks he’s got a handle on it. He can deal with the choice he made that night Peter’s teeth grazed his skin. Everyone makes life altering decisions and they live with the consequences. Stiles can too.

\--

Then he comes home one night in early June and finds a creepy swastika-like triskelion painted on his door. 

He races through the house, screaming himself hoarse because his dad’s car is parked in the drive and there’s cold, untouched take-out on the kitchen table. He dials Scott and can’t even say the words. Instead he snaps a picture of his front door and fires it off. He hurls in the dead petunias dad planted and never had time to water, and he waits. 

By the time Scott finds him on the front porch, he’s done freaking out and he’s ready to kick some Alpha Pack ass. 

“I’m driving,” he says and stands. 

Derek and Isaac arrive just as they are pulling onto the road. Stiles can’t even spare the energy to be annoyed that Isaac must have been with Scott when he got the picture because they need the help.

The Alpha pack never made it a secret where their homebase was, but they hadn’t given reason yet to confront them so everyone had just let them loom in the shadows.

It’s only now, as Stiles parks just down the street from the townhouse the Alpha Pack hangs out in, that Stiles thinks waiting was stupid and hopes to God his dad is still alive. You have to be proactive. You never know when the next kick to the head is coming.

There aren’t enough screw-yous in the world to respond to Derek’s, “Let us handle this,” so Stiles waits until everyone is out of sight and sneaks in after them. It’s a good plan at least. Three werewolves storm in through a window with enough fanfare that no one notices Stiles slipping past.

He finds his dad in the basement. He’s slumped over, beaten and bruised, and Stiles’ heart hammers in his chest until he find a pulse on his dad’s neck. His dad wakes enough to make eye contact, but his legs are broken. 

He just doesn’t have the strength to get his father up the stairs, out of the house to safety. He keeps trying, helplessly moving at the speed of a glacier, doing everything he can not to slip into a full on panic attack as he stumbles under his father’s weight. 

Then Scott is lifting Stiles’ dad up like he’s nothing, and fireman-carries him to the Jeep. 

Stiles walks behind, head bent and ignoring the fight still going on in the townhouse because it’s not his problem, and he couldn’t help even if it was. He wipes at his cheeks as they make it to the jeep. He’ll get his dad to the hospital. That’s all that matters tonight.

\--

When he walks up to the burned-out Hale house the day after his dad is discharged, Derek is waiting for him on the porch.

He has his speech planned; he’s thought this through and he wants it, _needs it_. If he has to he’ll mention how Derek and Isaac barely made it away from the Alpha Pack intact, and maybe an extra set of claws is what they need. But he doesn’t even have to open his mouth. He can already see in Derek’s eyes there won’t be an argument.

Derek looks resigned, maybe even eager, like he’s been waiting for Stiles to be ready to become something different. Something _more_. Like it’s inevitable that surrounded by werewolves, any human would find himself lacking. 

Stiles stumbles on that thought and the resolve on his face must flicker because he sees Derek frown, uncertain. Stiles slows his walk to the house, trying to force his conviction back. 

He sneaks a look back at his Jeep which is still popping quietly as it does in the minutes after it’s turned off. _His mother’s Jeep._

He can’t help but wonder what she’d say if she knew that he drove her Jeep to give up his humanity. 

“Be true to yourself, love,” she’d always told him, “Never sell yourself short.”

Stiles knows he’s had a long history of doing exactly that. He stares back at Derek, at the offer on the table. His fists tighten and he curses softly to himself because the moment’s gone and his decision is made. He turns on his heel. 

The leaves crunch beneath his feet as he walks back to his Jeep. 

What ever he is, it’s enough. It has to be.


End file.
